CX.
To Madame the Duchess de Montmorency (née des Ursins).[A]
Vive ✠ Jésus!
Moulins,
19th June, 1641.
My very honoured and very dear Madame, and by divine grace our true and beloved Sister,
I bless and thank our good God for enabling you so courageously to show forth the power of His divine Love. Your entrance into Religion will be for His greater glory and for the happiness of our little Congregation. O my dearest Sister, My well beloved of God, with what overflowing consolation you have filled my soul! I have just received your letter, which has been a long time on the road, and I now write in haste not to lose the opportunity of this messenger who goes direct to Lyons, as I am anxious to tell you that I consider that in no way have I now either the strength or the capacity to undertake the superiorship of any of our monasteries.
The Bishop and our Sisters, the latter very unwillingly, have partly consented not to have me re-elected here. Still, I assure you if his Lordship gives me an obedience to go to you I do not think I could possibly have a command more to my liking, and I pray God if this is His will that He may inspire the Bishop to send me. It would be an immense consolation to me to give the veil to one so full of desire as you are to revive the true spirit of our Blessed Father. May our good God complete in you the high perfection which He has so gloriously begun.
I am most truly your poor humble and unworthy servant in Our Lord, etc.
[A] When becoming a postulant at the Visitation, the Duchess de Montmorency wished not only to renounce her titles of nobility, but also to change her baptismal name of Marie-Félice, a custom which was not usual at that time. She was named Marie after Marie de Medicis, and Félice after her maternal uncle Félix Peretti (Pope Sixtus the Fifth). At her clothing she dropped these names and was from henceforth only known as Sister M. Henriette. She became Superior at Moulins some years after the death of St. Jane Frances.